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The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c8: 2. The Arab Conquest of Sindh and Multan

The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c8

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2. The Arab Conquest of Sindh and Multan

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THE ARAB CONQUEST OF SINDH AND MULTAN [711—713 A.D.]

Sindh on the eve of Arab conquest

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The eighth century Hindu kingdom of Sindh was larger in area than the modern province of that name and extended to Kashmir in the north, Kanauj in the east and the sea in the south. In the north-west it included a large portion of modern Baluchistan and the Makran coast. Its capital was at Alor (modern Rohri), and the Kingdom was divided into four provinces, each of which was in charge of a semi-independent governor. The King's direct jurisdiction extended over the central part of his kingdom, while the governors were the real masters of the provinces and were described as tributary rulers. The king was Sudra by caste and Buddhist by religion.¹ At the beginning of the seventh century A.D., the reigning sovereign Sahiras fell in a battle with Nimruz of Persia who had invaded Sindh and entered Kirman. He was succeeded by his son, Sahasi Rai II, who was overthrown by his Brahman minister Chach who put his royal master to death and seized the throne. The usurper married the widowed queen of his predecessor and suppressed the rebellious governors who had refused to acknowledge his authority. He also conquered a part of Makran in modern Baluchistan and imposed his authority on Kandabil in that country. Chach was succeeded by his brother Chandar. But the latter died soon after, and there was a dispute for the throne between his son Duraj and the eldest son of Chach, named Dahir. Eventually Duraj was defeated and ousted, and Chach's two sons Dahir and Daharsiah (both of whom were born of the widowed queen of Sahasi Rai II) divided the kingdom. On Daharsiah's death Dahir became the sole ruler of Sindh. On the eve of the Arab conquest the country was very much weakened on account of political changes and internal strife. Its heterogeneous population was sparse and lacked social solidarity owing to the oppression of the lower orders of the society by the ruling hierarchy. Its resources too were small. Above all, King Dahir was unpopular, [Figure: INDIA IN 713A.D. The Arab Conquest.

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¹ *Yuan Chwang*, Vol. II, p. 252; *Elliot and Dowson*, Vol. I, pp. 410-11.

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_ _ _ _ Boundary of the Arab Empire.

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as he was a usurper’s son. It was this ruler who had to face a large-scale invasion of his country by the greatest and most mighty empire of the age.

The causes

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Since time immemorial there had been commercial intercourse between India and Arabia. Long before the Arabs embraced Islam in the seventh century A.D., they used to visit our western coastal regions for trade and commerce and received a cordial welcome here. Our rulers and peoples, anxious to foster material prosperity, accorded generous treatment to these foreigners. There was hardly any change in our attitude towards them even after the Arabs had become Muslims. But certainly the Arab attitude towards our people and country underwent a great change owing to their religious and political cohesion and to the enthusiasm brought about in their native land by the teachings of Muhammad. Though commercial profit continued to be the avocation of a section of them, as before, the Arabian people, as a whole, had now begun cherishing the ambition of conquest and propagation of Islam. Their first expedition which aimed at the conquest of Thana near Bombay was undertaken as early as 636 A.D. (15 A.H.) during the Caliphate of Umar, but it was repulsed.² This was followed by successive expeditions to Broach,³ to the Gulf of Debal in Sindh and to Baluchistan (Makran), then a part of the Kingdom of Sindh.⁴ In spite of difficulties and defeats the Arabs continued raiding the frontier of Sindh both by land and sea. They concentrated their attacks on Kikan (Kikanan), a hilly region round the Bolan pass which was peopled by hardy Jats who led pastoral lives and who bravely defended their country from the Arab invaders. In 659 A.D. (39 A.H.) al-Haris gained some initial success, but was defeated and killed in 662 A.D.⁵ Another fruitless expedition was that of al-Muhallab in 664 A.D.⁶ He was followed by Abdullah who was defeated and slain. Sinan bin Salamah seems to have been fortunate in gaining a short-lived triumph in Makran, but Rashid bin Amir lost his life in an expedition in that very region.⁷ The same fate overtook another Arab adventurer named al-Mudhir. Notwithstanding these successive failures the Arabs persevered on and captured Makran, that is, modern Baluchistan, most of which then formed a part of Sindh “after a fierce and successful campaign” under Ibn al-Harri al-Bahitti in the first decade of the eighth century A.D. The way to the conquest of Sindh proper now lay open and the ambitious al-Hajjaj, the Arab governor of Iraq, secured the Caliph’s support to his forward policy. He despatched one after another two well-planned expeditions against Dahir; but both these expeditions were beaten and their commanders Ubaidullah and Budail were slain on the fields of battle.⁸ Stung by these successive reverses and humiliation, Hajjaj selected his own cousin and son-in-law Imad-ud-din Muhammad bin Qasim, an ambitious and daring youth of seventeen, and despatched him to Sindh at the head of a powerful force. Starting from Shiraz, he reached Makran which now belonged to the Arabs, and passing *via* Panj-gur, Armbil and Qaubati, he arrived at Debal near Karachi. This attempt proved a success, and Sindh and Multan were conquered in 712-13 A.D. Sindh thus lost its independence after more then seventy-five years’ brave resistance against the mightiest empire of the medieval age.

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² *Biladuri, K. F. B.*, Part II, p. 209.

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³ *Ibid.*

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⁴ *Ibid*, p. 210.

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⁵ *Ibid.*

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⁶ *Ibid.*

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⁷ *Ibid*, pp. 211-12.

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⁸ *Ibid*, p. 216.

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Some modern scholars, notably, Woolseley Haig, seem to hold that the main cause of the conflict between the Arabs and Sindh was the provocation given by the latter owing to its ruler’s failure to make a reparation for certain Arab ships plundered by some pirates off the coast of Sindh. The details given above from contemporary sources, however, reveal the fact that ever since their rise to power the Arabs had cast their eyes on our rich ports and had before their final success in 712 A.D. made many unsuccessful attempts to capture Sindh and the kingdoms of Kabul and Zabul by force of arms. Their design on India and their successful conquest of Sindh was only a part of their general aggressive scheme which brought under their sway, within a hundred years of the death of their Prophet, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Iran, Baluchistan, Trans-Oxiana, the whole of the northern coast of Africa, Upper and Lower Egypt, Spain and Portugal and the southern part of France, besides their own native Arabia. Thus the political and territorial ambition of the Arabs, and not the brigandage of the Sindh pirates, constituted an important cause of their invasion of Sindh. Coupled with this was the overpowering economic incentive, the desire to acquire wealth by easy and quick means, that is, fighting and plundering, and thereby to improve their material condition. But the principal driving force was the religious zeal which made them feel and act as if God was using them as agents for the propagation of Islam and the uprooting of infidel faiths from the face of the earth. Almost all the modern writers have either ignored or minimised the religious cause, forgetting the stark naked truth that the Arabs not only imposed their own religion and culture on the conquered people everywhere, but even almost completely wiped out the indigenous faiths and ways of life from most of the countries that they subjugated. Verily, the Arab ambition of imposing Islam on Sindh was one of the most powerful causes of this invasion.

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The occasion or rather the pretext for the final conflict was the charge that some Sindhi pirates had plundered a few Arab vessels off the coast of Debal near Thana. The story is variously related by different writers and seems to be apocryphal. One version is that the ruler of Ceylon had despatched to Hajjaj, governor of Iraq, a part of the Arabian empire, orphan daughters of some Arab merchants who had died in his country and when the ships carrying them and their belongings reached the coast of Sindh they were plundered by Sindhi pirates. Another writer says that the king of Ceylon, who had embraced Islam (which is historically incorrect), was sending tribute and valuable presents to the Khalifa himself and that these were plundered. A third source has recorded that the Khalifa had sent agents to India to buy some female slaves and certain other articles and these were plundered and carried off by brigands near Debal. It is said that Hajjaj was deeply affected by the outrage. He wrote to king Dahir of Sindh to punish the culprits and make reparations for the loss. Dahir replied that the pirates were not his subjects and that he was powerless to punish them. This infuriated Hajjaj, who obtained Khalifa Walid's permission to send an expedition against Dahir. Accordingly, Ubaidullah was despatched at the head of a respectable army, but he was defeated by Dahir and slain on the battle-field. The next expedition under Budail was also beaten and the commander killed. Muhammad bin Qasim, an ambitious and daring youth of seventeen, was now chosen to punish the king of Sindh.

Strength of the invading forces

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Muhammad bin Qasim started at the head of an army, fifteen thousand strong, consisting of 6,000 Syrian horse, 'the flower of the armies of the Caliphs,' 6,000 camelry and a baggage train of 3,000

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Bactrian camels who, too, were trained to fight and must be reckoned as combatants. He was joined near Makran by some more troops under Muhammad Harun, while his artillery, which consisted of five catapults, was sent by sea to join him at Debal. Each of these five catapults or *balistas* was worked by 500 trained men, making the total of his artillery men 2,500. Add to this the Arab advance guard under Abul Aswad Jahan who was sent to join his chief on the border of Sindh and we have a total of about 25,000 troops which constituted the Arab army of invasion under Muhammad bin Qasim. His numbers continued to swell as the result of his initial success and reached the figure of 50,000. This (50,000)⁹ was the strength of his army when Muhammad bin Qasim proceeded to Multan after the subjugation of Sindh. These figures did not include his troops who fell in various battles during the campaign and those that were left in garrisons in the towns of Sindh.

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⁹ *Elliot and Dowson*, Vol. I, p. 435.

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On the other hand, Dahir’s resources and the population of his country could not afford to employ an army of his opponent’s size. All unimpeachable sources agree that Dahir’s army was far inferior in numbers and equipment to that of the Arabs under Muhammad bin Qasim.

The conquest of Debal

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Either the Intelligence department of the Sindh government was hopeless or King Dahir was an extremely lethargic ruler and did not realize the imminent danger he was in. At any rate, he committed the fatal mistake of remaining inactive at his capital, Aror, over 150 miles away from Debal, and allowed the invader to capture a considerable portion of southern Sindh. He did not make any real attempt to check the progress of the invading army, nor did he send any reinforcement to Debal which had a slender garrison of 4,000 troops as against the mighty invading army numbering over 25,000. Muhammad besieged the town which was protected by a strong stone-wall and his *balistas* rained stones on the garrison from the side of the sea. Our troops fought bravely, but they were hopelessly out-numbered. During the course of the siege, a Brahman from the chief temple deserted to the Arabs and informed Muhammad that as long as the red flag, to the base of which a talisman was tied, remained flying at the top of the temple, the town could never be taken. Muhammad's *balista* was now directed against the flag-staff which fell after a little initial failure, encouraging the Arabs beyond measure. This must have disheartened the garrison. Yet they made a bold sortie, but were repulsed. Conscious of the vast superiority of their numbers, the Arabs now climbed the walls by means of ladders and captured Debal. The people of the town were asked to choose between Islam and death. They preferred the latter. For three days a fearful carnage continued. All the males of seventeen years and above were put to death, and their women and children were carried into slavery. Temples were destroyed and mosques built in their places. A vast amount of valuable plunder of various kinds, including human booty, fell into the hands of the victor, one-fifth of which was duly sent to the Khalifa through Hajjaj. Thus did the first important town of India fall into the hands of the Arabs, not due to any cowardice on the part of the Indian soldiers, but owing to the lethargy of an Indian ruler and the overwhelming superior force of the enemy.

Contest with Dahir; the fall of Sindh

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Having placed Debal under an Arab governor with a garrison of 4,000 troops, Muhammad proceeded towards Nirun, then an important town about 75 miles north-east of Debal and situated near Jarak, just south of the modern Hyderabad, and after seven days' march reached and captured the place early in 712 A.D. without any resistance as the Buddhists there, being in treacherous collusion with the enemy, gave him active assistance. Dahir once again failed to move and left the inhabitants to their fate. Flushed with success, the Arabs now marched rapidly to Sehwan, which, too, fell after a week's siege, its governor, Bajhra, a cousin of Dahir, having left the place owing to the pusillanimity of the principal men of the town, who, being traders and priests, did not like to fight. Then came the turn of Sisam on the Kumbh, which was lost by the Jats after two days' unequal fighting. From Sisam Muhammad returned towards Nirun in order to cross the Mihran, the main stream of the Indus, and to meet Dahir who was entrenched at Brahmanabad. He was detained for months on the western bank of the river owing to want of boats and to the breakout of scurvy which reduced the number of his horses. After he had received a reinforcement of 2,000 horses and medicine for the ailing animals from Hajjaj, he crossed over to the other side, along with his whole force without meeting much resistance.

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Dahir, who seems to have pinned his faith on a pitched battle, was now roused to a sense of the danger he had landed himself in by his policy of drift, and collected, according to the Arab accounts, 50,000 troops, raised mostly on the spur of the moment, and moved from Brahmanabad to Rawar to meet the invader. After several days' skirmishes between the scouts of both the sides, a well contested engagement took place on 20th June, 712 A.D. Dahir himself, mounted on an elephant, led the attack, as if to redeem his character. He rehabilitated his reputation as a soldier, though not as a general, by a valiant fight. But his elephant, being struck by a naphtha arrow that set fire to the *hauda*, fled into the river, causing a great deal of confusion in the ranks of his army. The animal was, however, induced to return from the mid-stream. Dahir hit the enemy hard and carried out great slaughter among the Arab troops. But, as ill-luck would have it, he himself was struck by an arrow and fell from the elephant. He recovered himself in an instant and mounted a horse. Meanwhile the enemy hurled a mortal blow at him and his army fled in panic.¹⁰

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¹⁰ *Chach Nama* in *Elliot and Dowson*, Vol. I, p. 170.

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The concluding part of the tragic drama might afford some consolation to the Indian patriot. The women of Sindh, headed by Dahir's widow, Rani Bai, made an attempt to expiate for the sins of their men-folk. The Rani put up a heroic defence within the fort of Rawar and her garrison, 15,000 strong, rained stones and missiles on the besieging Arabs, causing them considerable headache. When it became impossible to hold out any longer, she performed the traditional *jauhar* along with her women followers, after the Rajput fashion, in order not to fall into the hands of the 'unclean' foreigners.¹¹ Brahmanabad (north of Hyderabad), too, like Rawar, redeemed its fair name. Here had gathered the remnants of Dahir's troops who fought with a grim determination, losing 8,000 (according to another account 20,000) of their number as killed, though not without killing an equal number, if not more, of the enemy. Jai Singh, Dahir's son, finding further resistance useless, retired to Chitrur and Muhammad occupied the town with its treasure and other valuables, including Rani Ladi, another widow of Dahir, and his maiden daughters, Surya Devi and Parmal Devi. The invader's next objective was Aror (also called Alor), the then capital of Sindh, held by another son of Dahir who stoutly defended the town and abandoned it only when further resistance proved to be of no avail. The subjugation of Sindh was now complete.

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¹¹ *Ibid*, p. 172.

The conquest of Multan

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Following up his extraordinary success in Sindh, Muhammad proceeded towards Multan early in 713 A.D. On his way from Aror he met everywhere with tough resistance; but his army, superior both in numbers and equipment, overcame it and, after having taken possession of a number of places, appeared before the gates of Multan. Like Debal and Brahmanabad, this ancient town fell through the betrayal of a traitorous deserter who revealed to the invader the stream from which the people drew their water supply and enabled him to cut it off from the besieged. Then followed the usual ghastly scene of slaughter, enslavement and loot. Here the Arabs got so much wealth that they named Multan as the city of gold.

Causes of the fall of Sindh

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Many causes contributed to the subjugation of Sindh. In the first place, the province was internally disunited and unable to resist a mighty invader like the Arabs. Its population was sparse and heterogenous. Besides the Hindus, who formed the bulk of the population, a considerable number consisted of Buddhists, and a fraction probably of Jains too. The lower orders of the society were badly treated. The Jats, the Meds and certain other castes were looked down upon and subjected to humiliation by the ruler, the court and the official class no less than by the higher caste people. They were not allowed to ride on saddled horses, to carry arms or to put on fine clothes. Owing to these circumstances social solidarity, the best guarantee of political independence, was conspicuously lacking. In the second place, the ruler and his government were unpopular and also inefficient in war and probably also in peace. Only a generation before Muhammad bin Qasim's invasion the throne of Sindh had been usurped by the hated Chach. His son, Dahir, was equally disliked. In fact, there was little sympathy between the people and their king. Dahir's governors were almost semi-independent princes and did not seem to have co-operated with him in the time of crisis. Owing to these causes many of Dahir's subjects, particularly the Buddhists and the traders, refused to fight on the plea that it was none of their business.

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Quite a considerable number of them supplied valuable information to the invader and joined him against their king and country. Mr. S. N. Dhar protests against what he calls making the Buddhists ‘the knaves of the story’¹² but the Buddhist defection is based on recorded evidence, and facts must always have more weight than logic. Some of the Hindus, too, must share with the Buddhists the ignominy of treachery to their country, and the example was shamelessly set by a priest from the sacred temple of Debal. It is generally forgotten that, in spite of social tyranny within their own folds, the Hindus, long accustomed to religious tolerance, had developed a cosmopolitan attitude towards other faiths and peoples. Little did they reflect how Islam, which looks upon other religions as false and considers it to be its primary duty to put down idolatry, would treat them. Ignorant cosmopolitanism, combined with lack of patriotism, had produced a frame of mind in the generality of the Hindus that made little difference between their own countrymen and foreigners and induced the disgruntled among them to go over to the side of the enemy of their country. Defection and treachery were, without doubt, important causes of the fall of Sindh. Fourthly, Sindh was then, as now, an economically poor and a deficit province. Its meagre resources could not support a large standing army or finance a long war with a superior enemy.

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Fifthly, the Arab invading force was vastly superior to that of Dahir both in numbers and equipment, though not in the qualities of courage, daring and contempt of death. The garrison of 4,000 Sindhi troops, at Debal, had to face 25,000 Arabs, the flower of the Khalifa’s army, and, with a disparity of one to six and a traitor supplying the besieger with every useful information, it was surprising that they could hold out for as many days as they actually did. Nirun, Sehwan and Sisam combined did not possess a quarter of the fighting strength of the army of invasion. There was something like parity in numbers, though not in equipment and enthusiasm (as the Arabs, on account of their repeated successes, were flushed with enthusiasm and our people, proportionately, dispirited and demoralized for the same reason), when the parties came face to face at Rawar. And this witnessed so tough a conflict that the enemy for a time seemed to have become despaired of success. The story of the Arab heroism and Muhammad bin Qasim’s towering genius as well as of the cowardice of the Indian soldiers, so often related by interested writers, is now an exploded myth, thanks to the modern scientific research in our medieval history. It is worthy of note that the Arabs had been twice beaten by the Sindhi troops. Their eventual success was due to their superiority in numbers and equipment and to the want of proper leadership on the other side.

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Sixthly, Sindh was isolated from the rest of the country for a pretty long time. While it was overwhelmed by superior military force, it could not look to the rest of India for assistance. Our country was then divided into numerous independent states, each concerned with its own affairs, and with no central government or any other common organisation for the protection of their own frontiers. Seventhly, while the Arabs were spurred on to an adventurous and aggressive warfare by a firm, though misguided conviction that Divine Providence was pleased to use them as agents for forcing on the infidel people the blessings of Islam, our people possessed no such inspiring ideology to sustain their spirits in that fateful hour of their country’s history. A curious irony of ignorant fate prevented them from facing hard facts and from realising that their religion and culture as well as homes and hearths were in imminent danger. Finally, Dahir’s ignorance, initial lethargy and want of leadership and his silly mistakes furnished an adequate explanation of his defeat and the enslavement of Sindh. It was an unpardonable sin on the part of the governments of Sindh and the Punjab in particular not to have maintained touch with the great revolution in Arabia that created a mighty empire there in the seventh century A.D.

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and to have failed to make adequate arrangements for the defence of their frontiers after the Arab conquest of Makran (modern Baluchistan) which borders on, and is contiguous to, Sindh. Dahir did not raise his little finger and allowed Debal, Nirun, Sehwan, Sisam and several other places comprising the lower Sindh, to fall into the hand of the enemy. By a curious infatuation or folly he waited for the invader to arrive near Rawar and made no attempt to check his progress or to attack him while he lay for months on the other side of the Mihran almost paralysed by sickness that grievously affected his horses. He suffered Muhammad to cross the river without obstructing his passage. He staked his all on the issue of one pitched battle. Instead of supervising his men in the field of battle as a general and leader and sending succour where necessary, he took a personal part as a soldier and lost touch with various divisions of his army. He expiated for his sin with his life, but not in the eyes of posterity, as he paved the way for his country's bondage.

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¹² S. N. Dhar, *The Arab Conquest of Sindh* (Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 1939), pp. 849-57.

Partial religious toleration conceded

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Muhammad bin Qasim's first task, after the conquest of Debal, was to devise a rough and ready military administration for ensuring the possession of the town. He appointed a military officer as incharge and stationed a garrison of 4,000 troops to work under his orders. This was repeated in every town, the strength of the garrison depending upon the population and strategic importance of the individual places. Confiscations, booty, plunder and extortions, all done by soldiery, sufficed to finance the war, as also the army of occupation. In this primitive administration he did not require the active co-operation of the people of the province. For this reason and in view of the mission with which the invasion was undertaken, Muhammad behaved in the hour of his victory and during his progress towards the capital town of Aror in the manner of a fanatical Musalman. Thousands of men were killed in cold blood for refusing to renounce their ancestral faith. Thousands of innocent women and children were deprived of their property and religion and reduced to servitude. Temples were everywhere destroyed and images desecrated and broken to pieces. Even such barbarous atrocities failed to satisfy Muhammad's immediate chief, Hajjaj, who, being a relentless persecutor, remonstrated against what he called slackness in doing the Lord's work, and directed him to deal with the infidels with greater severity. There is no doubt that Muhammad must have loyally carried out his chief's command.

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After the defeat and death of Dahir, however, when the Arabs became the masters of almost the entire province and Muhammad was faced with an immediate necessity of establishing sound and durable administration, he felt compelled to choose between religious bigotry and political wisdom. It was physically impossible for a handful of the Arabs to take upon themselves all the work relating to the various branches of administration and to compel the natives to till the soil and to provide them with food and revenue. In the first place, the Arab number was small. Secondly, they were ignorant of Indian administration, revenue rules and regulations and principles of jurisprudence, etc. Thirdly, the Hindus were intensely devoted to their religion and, deeply conscious of the superiority of their faith and culture, looked down upon the conquerors as nothing more than masterful barbarians. They preferred death to Islam. Fourthly, the Hindus were armed to the teeth and in those days there was little difference in the equipment and quality of a regular soldier and the common people. An organised attempt at proselytisation would have meant a perpetual war and defeated the very object of the conquest. On the other hand, Islam, as interpreted by Muslim jurists and commentators of the Quran, granted toleration only to the Jews and the Christians, but not to the Hindus. The law of Islam divided the non-Muslims into two groups.

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The first group known as the *Ahl-i-Kitab* (People of the Book), who were believed to be sharers in Revelation, were the Hebrews and the Christians and were entitled to toleration on payment of the jizya. The second group was, according to them, of those who did not possess the Revealed Book and hence they were not entitled to toleration. The Hindus belonged to the second category. They laid down that for the Hindus there was to be no choice between conversion to Islam and death. Muhammad bin Qasim was, therefore, faced with a dilemma and did not know what to do. Under the circumstances the only practical solution of the problem was a kind of compromise that could extend to the Hindus and the Buddhists of Sindh a partial toleration granted to the Jews and the Christians. Muhammad bin Qasim accepted this compromise. The Hindus were, therefore, asked to pay the jizya or Poll Tax and were allowed to retain their religion and worship their God in an inoffensive manner and without parade. They became known as the *Zimmis* (protected people), as the Hebrews and the Christians were known. This was obviously a concession which had been unknown to the Islamic law (*Shariat*) and opened up a new chapter in the history of Islam. That accounts for Sir William Muir's observation that the Arab conquest of Sindh marked a new stage in Muslim policy. Muhammad bin Qasim's decision to grant partial religious tolerance to the Hindus in Sindh was a very important act.

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This became a kind of fundamental law for subsequent Muslim rulers of the land. It must, however, be understood that the partial toleration given was not due to generosity but to peculiar circumstances as all the Hindus could not be put to death or forcibly converted. Moreover, they were not accorded equal rights of citizenship with those of them who had embraced Islam. They were required to pay the jizya which was a religious tax and meant to show that they were an inferior people. Various other disabilities were imposed upon them. Inspite of these, Muhammad succeeded in winning the Hindu co-operation and thus solving his novel problem.

Political divisions and their government

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After the above fateful decision, which gave the fundamentals of Islamic administration in India, Muhammad bin Qasim proceeded to lay down the general principles of administration. He divided the conquered province into a number of districts (*iqtas*), at the head of each of which an Arab military officer was appointed. The new district officers were required to render military service to the governor and were given a great deal of latitude in local administration. Sub-divisions of the district must have been allowed to remain intact with their local Hindu officers. Soldiers were given land in jagir. Muslim saints and scholars were similarly given endowments of land. Thus a number of Arab military colonies came into existence. The local administration, specially in the rural areas, remained completely in the hands of our people. The old principles and rules and regulations continued as before. If the Arabs made any change they were confined to the capital and the district towns only.

The revenue system

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The conquerors introduced little change in the revenue administration of the province. The principles for the assessment and collection of revenues remained the same as in the time of Dahir. Only one or two new taxes were imposed. The most important among these was the jizya. The land revenue varied between 2/5 and 1/4 of the produce of the soil. Besides these two taxes there were a number of others, and all these were farmed out to the highest bidder.

Justice

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The administration of justice was haphazard. There was no well-organised hierarchy of courts, nor was there the uniformity of law administered in these courts. The district officers took cognizance of crimes committed within their respective jurisdictions. Similarly, the nobles decided cases in their estates. There was, without doubt, a *Qazi* at the capital and *Qazis* in all important towns. They decided cases according to the Islamic law, even though one of the parties might be a Hindu. Punishments were very severe for the Hindus. For example, theft committed by them was punished by burning them to death, in some cases including even the members of the culprit’s family. As far as the Hindus themselves were concerned, they decided their own cases. They had their *Panchayats* in which disputes relating to marriage, inheritance, social and moral matters were decided.

Religious policy

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Except in the beginning, the Arab religious policy in Sindh was one of partial toleration. The Hindus were allowed to worship their gods in their temples and in their homes. They were, however, required to pay the jizya. Some of the modern writers have called this tax a military tax charged from the Hindus for they were not required to render military service while the Muslims, who were required to render such service, were free from it. This view is erroneous, for the tax was charged from all the Hindus whether they rendered military service to the State or not. It was a religious tax. It was levied according to three grades into which the non-Muslim population was divided. The charge for the first grade was silver equal to 48 *dirhams*, for the second grade 24 *dirhams* and for the third grade 12 *dirhams*.

Hard lot of the common people

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The Arab administration did not prove an improvement upon that of Dahir so far as the lower classes of the people were concerned. There was no change in the treatment meted out to some of the tribes such as the Jats and the Meds. The members of these tribes were required to bring a dog when they came to pay their respects to the governor. They were forbidden to wear fine dresses, to ride on horses and to cover their head and feet. They were required to be branded on their hand. They were made to submit too many other humiliations. The people were required to feed every Muslim traveller for three days and nights. The common people must have, therefore, chafed under the Arab rule. It must, however, be admitted, in fairness to the Arabs, that their administration, on the whole, was more mild than that of the Turks who were to follow them as conquerors in the eleventh century A.D.

The death of Muhammad bin Qasim

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After these outstanding achievements the conqueror of Sindh met his tragic end in the prime of his life in 715 or 716 A.D. Two different causes are given about Muhammad bin Qasim's death. The first reads like a romantic tale. It says that when the two daughters of Dahir, Surya Devi and Parmal Devi, were presented to the Khalifa Walid they informed him that Muhammad had dishonoured them before sending them to him. The infuriated Khalifa, thereupon, ordered that the offender should be sewn up in the raw hide of an ox and thus carried to his capital. Muhammad immediately obeyed the order and died within three days. When the box was opened in the presence of the Khalifa the two ladies expressed satisfaction at having avenged the death of their father and told the Khalifa that Muhammad was innocent. Walid was transported into a rage and ordered the two princesses to be tied to the tails of horses and dragged until they were dead. Modern research has rejected this story as a later concoction. The other account, which ascribes Muhammad's death to political reasons, is more worthy of credence. On Khalifa Walid's death in 714 A.D. his brother, Sulaiman, succeeded him. The new Khalifa was an arch enemy of Hajjaj on whose family and relations he inflicted ruinous punishments. Muhammad, who was a cousin and son-in-law of Hajjaj, was dismissed from Sindh and sent a prisoner to Mesopotamia where he was soon after tortured to death.

Causes of the eventual Arab failure in Sindh

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The provinces of Sindh and Multan remained parts of the Khalifa's wide empire a little over 150 years, after which they severed their connections with the Caliphate. Even during that period the Arab rule witnessed a gradual decline. Governor was appointed to succeed governor. The inefficiency and weakness of the administration continued as before. Under an energetic governor there was a temporary activity and sometimes an expedition was undertaken against the neighbouring Hindu kingdoms, but this was followed by relapse into sloth and lethargy. Under Umar II, who became Khalifa in 717 A.D., an intense religious propaganda was launched. Many Hindu chiefs, notably Jai Singh, son of Dahir and ruler of Brahmanabad, were compelled to renounce their ancestral faith and become converts to Islam. The energetic governor named Junaid carried the Arab arms into the heart of Kutch, but the expedition was a mere raid and not a war of conquest. Eventually the Arabs found their influence languishing and were obliged to build two strongholds for their protection. They were *al-Mahfuzah*, ‘the guarded’, and *Mansura*, a few miles to the north-east of Brahmanabad. In 750 A.D. there was a revolution in Damascus as a result of which the Umayyaids were overthrown and a new Caliphate was established at Baghdad under Abbasid Khalifa. The quarrel between these two houses affected Sindh badly. The Abbasid Caliphs sent their own officers to Sindh with orders to expel the Umayyaid governor and officers. The result was a long and bitter quarrel which undermined the already waning prestige of the Arabs in that province. After this date the governors and chiefs of Sindh became more or less semi-independent rulers. In 871 A.D. Sindh cut off its relations with the Caliph and declared its independence in fact, though not in name. Two local Arab chiefs established themselves at Multan and Mansura which became, for all practical purposes, independent kingdoms. The kingdom of Multan comprised the upper valley of the Indus as far as Aror, while that of Mansura embraced Sindh proper. The rulers of these dynasties associated the natives with the administration and granted toleration to the Hindus and the Buddhists.

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The late Stanely Lane-poole expressed the opinion that the Arab conquest of Sindh was “an episode in the history of India and Islam, a triumph without results.” This has been accepted as correct by many writers of Indian history. The history of the Arabs in Sindh, according to them, shows that the Arab adventure “led to nothing.” The province, of course, remained in their hands till its conquest and annexation by the Turks; but the Arabs, who had a glorious record of conquest elsewhere, never succeeded in making a concentrated effort to conquer any other province, to say nothing of a major portion of our country. They had, no doubt, made a promising beginning, but their success, whatever it was, did not lead them beyond the frontiers of Sindh and Multan, except for a stray raid here and there. Hence the verdict of historians that the Arab conquest of Sindh was a mere episode in the history of Islam. As far as India was concerned, it learnt no lesson, and our people did not pause to consider the necessity of making a combined attempt to drive away the Arab invader from Sindh, nor did they make any attempt to close their ranks and to guard their north-western frontier from any future danger from that side. They were found as unprepared and as indifferent to the happenings outside three centuries later when the Turks began hammering the gates of their frontiers as in the early years of the eighth century A.D. when Muhammad bin Qasim took Dahir by surprise. It is for this reason that the Arab conquest of Sindh is an episode in the history of India. Historians have attributed the impermanence of the Arab regime to many causes. They can conveniently be divided into two, namely, internal causes and external causes. Among the internal causes the most important was the internal weakness of the Khalifa's empire. As has already been shown, a revolution at Damascus in 750 A.D. led to the overthrow of the Umayyaids by the Abbasids which greatly weakened the power and prestige of the Caliphate. The quarrel between the two ruling houses was carried into Sindh and dealt a mortal blow to the Arab prestige there. Secondly, in the wake of this revolution there occurred a still greater revolution in Baghdad which transformed the character and mode of life of the Arabs. Under Harun-al-Rashid the Arabs forgot their old vigour and "lost touch with everything original and vital in Islam." They became fond of a luxurious way of life and preferred speculative philosophy to the "Quranic orthodoxy and Arabian simplicity." This led to their eventual demoralization, making the Arabs unfit for any great military exploit or for an adventure in the field of administration. Thirdly, a wave of nationalism swept over the Muslim world and rent the primitive Islamic brotherhood into factions. Religious schism, too, raised its head high. A number of heretical sects appeared on the scene. Fourthly, under the religious impulse the Arabs had accomplished the conquest of Sindh. After their success, however, when they had consolidated their position in the province and their religious enthusiasm died out, their unity disappeared and they showed themselves incapable of coalescing into a system of concord and subordination. Fifthly, the Arab domination received a rude shock at the hands of the Turkish ambition which usurped power and reduced the Khalifa's empire to a mere phantom. Under these circumstances the Arab rulers could take little interest in the fortunes of their agents in Sindh. Sixthly, owing to these internal convulsions the Arabs could not spare adequate forces without which Sindh could not be retained in their possession and further conquests in India were unthinkable.

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Among the external causes mention may be made of the presence of powerful Rajput kingdoms, particularly those on the north and the east. The Rajput dynasties, which ruled over these parts of the country, were more than a match for the Arabs and they were prepared to contest every inch of the ground against foreign encroachment. In the second place, there existed throughout India a powerful Hindu priesthood which exercised an irresistible influence over the people and was deadly opposed to foreign ways of life and thought. The generality of the Hindus, under the influence of this priestly class, considered themselves and their culture greatly superior to that of the Arabs, who were, in their eyes, nothing more than unclean barbarians. Thirdly, Sindh was then, as now, almost a desert land and its financial resources were inadequate to meet the expenditure of a top-heavy administration. It was, therefore, financially a deficit province and was an unremunerative part of the Caliphate. The Arabs of Sindh, left to their own resources, found themselves powerless against their richer neighbours. Finally, Sindh is situated in the wrong corner of India and it does not offer a geographical key to the rest of the country. It was not possible for any power starting from Sindh and making that as the base of its operations to succeed in conquering the rest of India.

The effects of the Arab conquest

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From the political point of view the Arab conquest of Sindh was an insignificant event in the history of Islam and also in that of India. Nor did it permanently influence the language, art, traditions, customs and manners of our people. In fact, the Arabs left few memorials in the shape of buildings or administrative or cultural institutions that might have exerted influence on us or served as memorial of their rule. There is, however, the other side of the picture. It will be a mistake to suppose that the Arab adventure produced no effect whatever on our countrymen. The Arab conquest of Sindh was destined to sow the seed of Islam in this land. A considerable portion of the population of the province was compelled to abandon its ancestral religion and become convert to Islam. The new religion, foreign in its doctrines and ways of life, thus acquired a footing which proved to be permanent. It became the endeavour of future invaders from the north-west to help this religion to expand and flourish and to exploit the presence and sympathy of the Indian converts. This became the first of a series of fateful events which eventually led to the partition of our country and the establishment of Pakistan in 1947.

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The Arabs themselves were profoundly affected by the contact with our religion, culture and people. They were astonished at the superiority of the Hindu civilisation, the Hindu philosophical thought and ideals and the versatility of the Hindu intellect. They learnt many things from us, 'specially the practical art of administration, and astronomy, music, painting, medicine and architecture.¹³ The Barmakis, a family of Buddhists (probably of Indian origin) who were in charge of No Bahar (*Nav Vihar*), a Buddhist temple at Balkh, became prime ministers of the Abhasid Caliphs (Saffah, Mansur and Harun-al-Rashid) after their conversion to Islam and dominated the Baghdad court for about fifty years (753-802 A.D.). They were responsible for inviting Indian scholars and scientists, physicians, astrologers and mathematicians, from Sindh to Baghdad in 771 A.D. Other missions followed, and Indian scientists like Bhāla, Mānaka, Bazigar (Bijayakar ?) and Sindbad acquired great fame at the Caliph's capital and were frequently mentioned in Arabic works. Mānaka, a physician, cured the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid of a serious disease and Dhana was appointed chief medical officer of a hospital at Baghdad. Indian scholars transmitted to the Arab world their knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, astrology, medicine and surgery.¹⁴ The Arabs adopted the Indian numerals and had some of the important Sanskrit works, such as *Brahmasiddhanta* of Brahmagupta and his *Khanda Khandyaka* translated into Arabic with the help of Hindu scholars. They employed Indian masons and painters to build and decorate their mosques and palaces. The Arabic civilisation was, thus, greatly enriched by its contact with our land. The Arabs carried Indian philosophy, numerals, astronomy and other branches of knowledge to Europe.¹⁵ Much of the enlightenment of the early Europeans of the eighth and the ninth centuries A.D. was, therefore, due to the Arab contact with India.

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¹³ *Al Beruni's India*, translated by Sachau, p. xxxi.

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¹⁴ *Al Arab*, Vol. I, No. 8 (15th January, 1962).

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¹⁵ Havell, *Aryan Rule in India*, p. 256.

Cites (2)